Messy testing Serengeti and Banana Cream ltd run

Today I am looking at Serengeti ltd run and Banana Cream ltd run glass from Creation is Messy. These  colours are available to buy in the UK right now.

These beads have been made with a base of Serengeti. It looks paler in rod form and becomes this lovely dark caramel shade when worked. There is some colour variation on the surface of these beads with dark striations and patches of warmer brown tones.

The complimenting glass colours in the beads above are Butternut ltd run and Maple.

Serengeti appears to have a limited reaction with silver leaf. This tiny goddess bead has been made with a base of Serengeti burnished with fine silver leaf and then wafted in the flame to vapourise the metal. Some of the silver has been left been behind in little patches and droplets and there are some very small darker fumed areas. This bead also gives a better an idea of the natural colour variations you can achieve in a sculptural bead made with Serengeti.

I found Serengeti very easy to work with, it melted smoothly without shocking. 

This mini set of beads has a base of Banana Cream ltd run decorated with Reichenbach dense black dots and stringers. Banana Cream is a very pale yellow. It is another well behaved glass, smooth to melt and no shocking.

Banana Cream does not react with copper based colours which makes it a wonderful alternative for Effetre pale ivory if those pesky reaction lines are not what you are looking for. The little beads here are Banana Cream with Vetrofond dark turquoise dots. The centre row of turquoise dots have been partially covered with Butternut ltd run. You can clearly see a reaction line between the Butternut and the turquoise and no reaction line between the turquoise and Banana Cream.

This little goddess has been made with Banana Cream with a touch of Effetre Ivory - they were next to each other on the desk and I picked up the Ivory by mistake!

Banana Cream and Effetre ivory both have a strong reaction with fine silver leaf. Vapourised silver leaf leaves little droplets and a golden fumed colour on the Banana Cream. The darker patches of glass and fumed areas around the outer edge of the goddess's tummy are Efftere ivory. Picking up the wrong glass was a happy accident in that here you can clearly see the difference in strength of the reaction with silver between these two glass colours.

Happy Melting, Jolene x

Messy testing - Amphibian ltd run

Today I had a look at Amphibian ltd run glass from CiM which has just become available in the UK. It is a sophisticated shade of opaque grey green. This first set of beads has been made with a base of Amphibian decorated with Ivory stringers. There is no reaction line at all between the two colours. I found the glass easy to work. It has a lot of striations where the wraps of glass melt in to one another when the bead is formed.

These nugget beads have all been made with Amphibian and Gaffer silver blue lustre frit. The first and last beads are made with Amphibian rolled in the frit. There is a tan halo around the frit where the silver content has fumed the Amphibian base glass. The second bead along was made with a base of Amphibian burnished with silver foil and then rolled in the frit.  The result is a lovely caramel base and tiny droplets of silver between the "windows" of blue frit. The third bead along was also burnished with silver foil and rolled in the frit but I have wafted the bead through a slightly propane rich reducing flame. The result is very interesting, organic and metallic with areas of oil slick rainbow colour that my camera couldn't pick up

Because Amphibian appears to be so  reactive with silver I decided to make some silvered stringer with it. These donut beads have been made with some silvered Amphibian stringer over a base of black glass. The resulting stringer looks golden tan and is wonderfully organic.

Happy melting, Jolene xx